Lately when I pick up the next in the Stone Barrington series I wonder why I do so - would it hurt me to put it back down? The Stone books have a certain formula that worked for quite some time, but seems "old skool" now...rich, misogynist lawyer with babes falling into his bed solves the mysteries and problems of the elite, drawing like-minded characters into his orbit and becoming richer in the process. However this book sets a crack in the mold by substituting the formerly comedic Herbie Fisher with Stone, but with the same results. I liked that Dino Bacchetti was elevated to a major character this time, but found the plot fractured into several minor storylines which weakened the whole. Now we have opportunities for Herbie, Stone's son Peter, Mike Freeman, and even Dino to branch off in their own series.

Things I like: short chapters that help create the suspense, the books are a quick read, the potential for more variety with various series, the characters are not believable, but make readers wish they could "make rain" and be rich like the ones in the story.

Things I don't like: bed partners are casually cast aside in favour of the next shallow dalliance (even Stone's previous marriage in another book was not realistic), Herbie is now a Stone-clone when his previous function was one of comic relief, weird old-fashioned language like "make rain" and "That's mighty white of you" (which blew my mind that it actually made it into print) that only experienced readers are familiar with and are not considered PC today, the creation of characters and firms for convenience (Mike Freeman and Strategic Defense are some examples).

Not sure if I'll read the next of Woods' books when there are so many good ones out there. Probably not.